Free Plans Are Disappearing: What New Creators Should Do in 2026

Thinkific killed its free plan in November 2024. Teachable’s free tier is gone too, replaced by a “Free” plan that charges $1 plus 10% per transaction. Podia held the line longer but now caps free accounts at features so thin they barely function. If you’re a new creator in 2026 hunting a truly free course platform, the honest answer is: it doesn’t exist anymore. Here’s what to do instead.

Which free tiers vanished, and when

The exit from free plans happened faster than most creators noticed. Here’s the timeline, verified against each platform’s current pricing page as of August 2026.

Thinkific’s exit was the loudest. Its free plan was a genuine on-ramp: one course, unlimited students, full course delivery. When it disappeared in November 2024, the entry price jumped from zero to $36/month billed annually, or $49 month-to-month. That’s a real barrier for someone testing a first course idea.

Teachable’s “Free” plan technically still exists on its pricing page, but the mechanics changed the meaning of the word. You get one course, one coaching product, and a $1 + 10% cut on every sale. On a $100 course, Teachable takes $11. On a $500 course, they take $51. The plan is now a trial disguised as a tier.

Podia is the survivor, but barely. The free plan on Podia’s pricing page excludes email marketing, community features, and third-party code. It charges 8% on every transaction. A creator serious about launching a course will hit a wall inside the first month.

Why “free” was never free once the transaction cut is counted

Here’s the arithmetic every new creator should run before picking a platform. It changes the decision.

Say you sell a $200 course and make 10 sales in your first month. That’s $2,000 in gross revenue. Stripe takes 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, roughly $61, on every plan you’ll ever use. That’s unavoidable. The question is what the platform adds on top.

The “free” plans cost between $160 and $210 in the first month you make real sales. Thinkific Basic and Zanfia Starter, both around $31 to $36 billed annually, cost less than a single Teachable transaction fee once you clear $360 in monthly revenue. That break-even happens fast. Two $200 sales, and you’re already paying the “free” platform more than a paid one.

This is why platforms retired their free tiers. They stopped being loss leaders and started being adverse selection: creators who never intended to pay, testing forever, generating support tickets without revenue. The 10% fee on a “free” plan is not a courtesy. It’s a filter.

Trial vs freemium vs free-with-fees: three different bets

New creators shopping platforms in 2026 see three models. They look similar. They are not.

Free with transaction fees (Gumroad, Teachable’s Free, Podia Free). Zero monthly cost, high per-sale cut, feature caps. Who it fits: someone selling one product a month, testing the market, comfortable with the platform’s checkout owning the brand. Honest limitation: the fee scales with success. The better you do, the more it costs.

Freemium with hard caps (Podia’s remaining free tier). Zero cost, zero transaction fee inside the cap, but critical features locked. Who it fits: nobody serious. The features locked are the ones you need to make a sale. Honest limitation: it exists to funnel you to paid.

Free trial, then paid (Thinkific, Kajabi, Zanfia). 14 or 30 days to test everything, no card required, then a real subscription. Who it fits: creators who’ve validated the idea and are ready to build in production. Honest limitation: you have to commit within the trial window, and email campaigns on Zanfia are still rolling out to workspaces gradually.

Zanfia belongs in the third bucket. 14-day free trial, then $31/month on Starter billed annually. No permanent free plan. That’s a choice, not an oversight: the numbers above show why permanent free plans force a 10% tax on every sale to stay viable.

What to a month actually buys in 2026

The gap between “free” and $31/month is smaller than it looks and the return is larger than it looks. Here’s what the entry paid tiers actually deliver, as of August 2026.

Thinkific Basic ($36/month annual). Unlimited courses and students, native video hosting, coupons, custom domain. No community, no email marketing, no advanced analytics. Read the current features on Thinkific’s pricing page.

Kajabi Kickstarter ($71/month annual). One product, one funnel, unlimited landing pages, native email marketing. Kajabi’s advantage is the marketing stack, and it’s why they charge double. Verify current tiers on Kajabi’s pricing page.

Zanfia Starter ($31/month annual, $39 monthly). Up to 250 active clients, 5 products, 1 community, native video hosting, checkout with order bumps and installments, 0% platform commission, Stripe and PayPal, and 1,500 monthly AI credits for the built-in Assistant. Full plan comparison at Zanfia’s pricing page.

The 0% platform commission is the piece that changes the math permanently. On any of the fee-based plans, growing costs you more. On a plan with a flat subscription and 0% commission, growing costs nothing extra beyond the Stripe cut everyone pays.

Honest limitation on Starter: the built-in MCP endpoint and the full AI Assistant are gated to the Pro plan at $119/month annual. If you want to run your creator business through AI agents from day one, Starter isn’t the plan. If you want to launch a course and get customers, it is.

How to validate a course before you pay for anything

The real answer to “what do I do without a free plan” is: don’t build the course first.

The mistake creators made in the free-plan era was building a full course inside a platform before knowing if anyone wanted it. Free plans enabled the mistake. The removal of those plans is a forcing function to validate the idea first, with tools that cost less than the platform anyway.

A validation sequence that costs under $30 total, before you touch a course platform:

Week 1: Post the promise. Write a single landing page describing what the course teaches and who it’s for. Host it free on Carrd ($19/year) or a Notion page. Drive 100 visitors from Twitter, LinkedIn, or a niche subreddit. Measure email signups.

Week 2: Pre-sell. Email the signups with a founding-member offer at half the intended price. Take payments through Stripe Payment Links, which costs nothing to set up. Ten pre-sales validate the idea. Zero pre-sales means the idea needs work, not a better platform.

Week 3: Build the first module. Only after money changes hands. Record one module, deliver it as a Google Drive folder or a Loom collection to your founding members. Get their feedback before building module two.

Week 4: Move to a real platform. Now you know the course sells. Start a 14-day trial on a paid platform, migrate the content, launch to the rest of your list. The subscription pays for itself in the first month because you already have paying customers.

This sequence works because it separates two questions that “free” plans blurred: does this idea sell, and which platform delivers it best. The first question needs a landing page and a payment link, not a course platform. The second question only matters once the first is answered yes.

The recommendation

If you’re validating an idea, don’t pay for a course platform yet. Use a landing page, a Stripe Payment Link, and manual delivery for the first ten customers. Total cost: under $30.

If you’ve validated and you’re ready to build in production, the entry-paid tiers are cheaper than the fee-based “free” plans the moment you clear $400 in monthly revenue. Thinkific Basic works if you only need courses. Zanfia Starter works if you need courses plus a community plus a newsletter plus a checkout with 0% platform commission, and you want the option to layer AI agents on top later.

Kajabi Kickstarter works if native email marketing at launch is non-negotiable and $71/month is inside your budget. As of publication, Zanfia’s email campaigns are rolling out to workspaces, so by the time you read this they may already be available on your account. Check your dashboard.

The free-plan era is over. It ended because the math didn’t work for platforms or creators. The replacement is better if you use it correctly: validate cheap, then commit to a tool that scales without taxing every sale.